


the heavy weight of living

by orphan_account



Series: cancelling the apocalypse [5]
Category: Captain America
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Comfort Sex, M/M, Minor Character Death, Press and Tabloids, Racebending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-11
Updated: 2013-08-11
Packaged: 2017-12-23 04:07:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/921808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky is quiet in the green room before the show. Steve sits beside him, he's used to this, to the interviews and the lime light. He was featured in a Japanese teen idol magazine at sixteen before he'd even set foot in a jaeger with his mom. He knows she'll be watching this now from her hospital bed. </p>
<p>"What do they ask about?" Bucky says softly.</p>
<p>"Anything. Everything." Steve has some idea of what is going through his head, he's lived this but everyone reacts differently. Despite drifting together, there's so much about Bucky that Steve needs to truly learn. "Reporters are better at digging up the stupid shit we've done then any of PPDC's background checks."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the heavy weight of living

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bastile's Weight of Living Pt 1
> 
> Bucky Barnes as played by [Aarif Lee](http://troublesteady.tumblr.com/post/57810152849/marvel-dreamcast-aarif-rahman-as-bucky-barnes)

Bucky is quiet in the green room before the show. Steve sits beside him, he's used to this, to the interviews and the lime light. He was featured in a Japanese teen idol magazine at sixteen before he'd even set foot in a jaeger with his mom. He knows she'll be watching this now from her hospital bed. 

"What do they ask about?" Bucky says softly.

"Anything. Everything." Steve has some idea of what is going through his head, he's lived this but everyone reacts differently. Despite drifting together, there's so much about Bucky that Steve needs to truly learn. "Reporters are better at digging up the stupid shit we've done then any of PPDC's background checks."

Bucky's whole face screws up as he tries to think back to what might be dug up. "So like-"

"Excuse me, sirs," an young woman interrupts. From the way her eyes keep on darting to Steve then away, he assumes intern. Probably with a poster of him on her wall. The thought makes his shoulders itch and he jumps when Bucky touches the small of his back, almost without realizing it.

"You good, Steve?" He murmurs softly, leaning in close as if she could possibly hear them. Steve wonders if it's okay to lean in and kiss him, he can still taste Bucky on his lips from that morning in their all expenses paid hotel room. They haven't discussed this, the public part of their relationship. If there is a public part. It's one thing to touch and kiss on base, surrounded by people who understand the depth brought on by the pons. They're not in that world right now though.

"I thought I was cheering you up."

Bucky grins, his whole face lighting up. Steve loves that, it's only been a few weeks and seeing Bucky smile makes things better. "Well you know me, turning the tables on you."

The intern clears her throat. "I'm so sorry but-"

"We're coming," Steve says quickly and gets up, holding out a hand for Bucky. They get a standing ovation as they enter the studio. For pilot interviews TV stations used the old studios outside L.A. to draw in local, and properly enthusiastic crowds. It always makes Steve stand a little straighter and he can see it having the same affect on Bucky.

The host urges everyone into their seats and Steve and Bucky sit on the couch by his desk. His smile is big and fake and Steve leans a little closer to Bucky. "So we have a new Jaeger pilot with us today, welcome Ranger James Barnes, we're grateful for your service." Steve had been given the same spiel during his first round of press. "Why don't you tell us something about why you chose this."

-

Steve has two memories in his head of Bucky smoking. There might be more that he just couldn't process during the drift, but those two stuck out like a sore thumb. He knows Bucky is thirteen in the first one, on Oahu, visiting an uncle. He's angry and Steve doesn't know why, he only has the image of Bucky standing outside and staring out at the ocean.

In the next, Bucky is fifteen and there's another boy hovering over him with his face in shadow. He's angry again and using this boy as a distraction, just like he's using the cigarette to calm him.

And now looking at Bucky, shoulders bunched under his crisp dress uniform, Steve knows he's dying for a cigarette again. He waits until they're back to their hotel room before finally snapping.

"What _right_?" Bucky snarls, yanking hard at his tie. Steve feels the weight of his mother's cross, a family heirloom carried over from Ireland generations ago. "That fucking bastard. Safe in fucking Denver. Fuck him. Trying to judge my family like that." Steve reaches out and catches his hands, he can feel the way he's shaking like it's all he can do to stay in one piece. Bucky doesn't have much of an accent, he grew up in army bases, but when he's angry his voice thickens and Steve has to sort through some of his memories when initiating the neural handshake to make sense of the Pidgin. "Shoulda broken those precious teeth of his."

"Bucky, he's an ass. Everyone knows it. Those people in the crowd? They know and understand the choices your family made." He presses his lips to Bucky's, wishing they could connect like they did in the pons. It would be so much simpler that way. He cups Bucky's cheeks and stays in Bucky's space even after the kiss ends. " _I_ understand," he whispers.

"Oh, pulled that same shit to you, didn't he? Oh fuck, I watched that interview." Bucky cuts himself off before Steve can do it, taking a deep breath and visibly making himself calm down. Steve's fingers work on his tie, slowly pulling it off and then starting on the buttons of his shirt. "He lectured your mom."

"My mom could handle him." He brushes his lips over the line of Bucky's jaw.

"She is…" Bucky trails off, distracted for the moment by Steve's mouths and fingers. "She's an incredible woman."

Steve's hands are at Bucky's belt." Can we not talk about my mom right now?" He nudges Bucky back towards the bed until Bucky takes a few steps backward on his own to flop down. He smiles up at Steve, shirt undone and pants open. Steve takes a long look. Bucky has been groomed to be a weapon, peak physical performance so he can be at his very best in the jaeger. With Steve still watching, he curls a hand around himself and squeezes through the fabric.

"So what are we talking about?"

He drops to his knees between Bucky's spread legs. "Talking about you I think." He gets Bucky's pants out of the way, and joins his hand with Bucky's around his cock. It doesn't take much to get him fully hard, and Steve's own arousal strains against his pants, like a feed back loop when they're not even connected. With his eyes closed, his world narrows down to Bucky, to the way he feels in his mouth and under his hands, the sounds that escape him and Bucky's own hands, entwining with Steve's own. 

He can feel he way Bucky's body knots up, like a bow string pulled tight, like the breath before the pons is initiated. And he lets go. Bucky sobs at the loss, straining so close to the edge. But when Steve slides up his body, he's there to meet him, already knowing what comes next. They move in sync, perfect and easy. Steve on top with Bucky inside him. They've never had to talk about sex much, but they know what they like. Bucky's fingers trace up the path of Steve's spine (like the final piece of the flight suit locking into place), making him arch and clench around Bucky.

This is the conversation they're having, it's familiar after only a few weeks. From right after their first drift, sex with Bucky has been like nothing Steve had ever felt before. 

Bucky comes hard, Steve's name on his lips. Steve stops moving just to watch him, his hand moving over his own cock, faster as Bucky comes down from his own rush. His hand is slick with sweat and pre-come. Underneath him, Bucky looks up with a smirk and jerks his hips and that little bit is enough. 

He rests his forehead in the crook of Bucky's shoulder, their breaths mirroring each other. Bucky's nails scrape gently over his shoulder blades. It's soothing and Steve feels his eyelids start to grow heavy.

"I miss it," Bucky whispers.

"Miss what?" Steve shifts so he stretches out beside Bucky instead of resting his full weight on top of him. He stays close though, not wanting to lose Bucky's warmth. 

"Home. Hawai'i. Midway is something, but it's all concrete and metal now. There's maybe two feet of beach."

Steve runs his hands over Bucky's side, feeling the muscles shift and tense and loosen. "Midway isn't home?" Steve never had a home until he started piloting, all the moving around as a kid, going wherever there was work, it kept him from connecting with anywhere. He was only in the academy for a year and a half, but then there was Midway. Hawai'i was that place for Bucky, his first real home after years of moving.

"It…I guess it is. It's not like I've been back in months. Nothing to visit but graves." He twists to kiss Steve's forehead. "One day, go there with me? I can teach your lily white Alaskan ass to surf."

He curls his fingers in Bucky's hair and yanks him down for a proper kiss, for a moment he loses track of his retort, losing himself instead in the way Bucky's mouth moves against his. It's so easy, just like that first fight and stepping into the drift and dragging Bucky to bed. Everything with Bucky falls into place so easily without any need for words. "You like my ass," Steve manages to get out when the kiss ends.

Bucky grins and pinches his butt. "Yea, I guess I do." His hand stays there, curled around his ass almost possessively. "Can you-" Bucky whispers, strangely nervous. "Can you still feel me inside you?"

Steve kisses him instead of answering. "And the next time you're in my head, I'll make sure you know what it feels like too."

"Steve, that is-" He cuts off with a breathy sigh as Steve drags his lips over his neck. "That is not appropriate. And- and it's a distraction."

"We'll think about it on the way home."

Bucky laughs softly and shimmies up the bed, getting off his pants and shirt completely. It only takes Steve a moment to get out of his own clothes and follow, curling around Bucky. He can feel Bucky's heartbeat, echoing through him and into Steve. They fall asleep like that, tangled up to be as close as possible. 

The clock flashes three in the morning when his phone goes off, shocking him awake. His first thought is that they missed their lift back to Midway. Bucky grumbles something and presses his face into a pillow while Steve scrambles for his phone.

"Rogers."

"Steve? Steve it's Peggy, there's a car headed to you now, you need to get back here ASAP."

Something in her voice wakes him up immediately and he's already shaking Bucky to get him up. "What's wrong?" If it's a Kaiju there's no way they could get back in time to face it. He had no idea what else could warrant a late night wake up.

"It's your mom Steve, she's- get back here."

Steve freezes, and it's hard to breathe. He knew this was coming, since she had been grounded due to the cancer. She couldn't last forever and it was already years longer then the doctors predicted. He's lost people before, but he's never had time to prepare, isn't even sure he knows how. Bucky's sitting up now, moving carefully so as not to startle Steve but Steve has a sixth sense attuned to Bucky and he's not surprised by the hand that touches his shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

"I-" But despite knowing, he can't say it out loud.

Bucky takes the phone from him. "Hello? This is Bucky, what's going on?" He can't hear what Peggy says to Bucky but it's only a moment before Bucky says good bye and hangs up. "Come on, Rogers. Gotta make you half way respectable." Steve's grateful that Bucky can take control, can push clothes at him and get their stuff together. "It's okay Steve, I'm here and you'll be able to say good bye." There's no press for once as they hurry out of the hotel to the car, waiting just as Peggy said it would be. Bucky holds his hand the entire drive.

"You think she'll-" Steve half asks when they reach the airstrip.

"Yea, she's your mom. You can always call her in flight, just in case." On the plane, Bucky rests his head on Steve's shoulder to doze during the flight. Bucky's hand stays in his even after he falls asleep.

Steve reaches for his phone. Peggy picks up but hands it over to Steve. Steve has to do most of the talking but he doesn't care, every moment he can keep her on the phone is a moment she's with him a little longer. For a few more hours, his mom is there with him and Bucky is beside him and he can pretend it's okay.

-

The pilots have their own rituals, ways of dealing with losing friends and partners without any warning. Pilots don't get burials. They get lost at sea, leaving behind nothing but a handful of possessions. Everyone there at Midway gathers on one of the launch bays, overlooking the sea.

Together they watch the small raft with Sarah's body float away. She's wrapped in her old bomber jacket, the closest thing the pilots have to a uniform.

Steve lifts the flare gun and fires one shot, and they all watch the bright red arch up and onto the raft to ignite it. Someone says a prayer but the wind carries the words out and away. Bucky slips an arm around his waist. For now, it's enough.

Tomorrow, they'll get back in their jaeger and life will continue, it has to.


End file.
